Chapter 2
Spear
Drip. The sound was insistent, metallic, as if a drop were always striking the same spot.
The young man barely opened his eyes. He saw nothing, only darkness."Drops?…" he thought, trying to focus. The echo bounced in his head as if he were inside an empty cavern.
Another drop.He frowned, touching his temples. The pain was gone. "My headache… it's gone?… great." A faint smile slipped out, little more than a sigh of relief.
But the smile vanished quickly."Why can't I see anything?" he muttered.
Another drop.
A voice appeared, not outside, but within:«Who are you?»
The young man tensed."What?"
Suddenly, as if two veils had been pulled aside, the darkness opened. The first light that blinded him was that of the stars.
He rose slowly, mouth agape. He was standing on a surface of crystalline water that made no waves and gave no reflections. The sky was an inverted ocean, crowded with white and blue stars that pulsed, closer than ever. Some seemed so low that if he stretched out his hand, he could touch them.
"Wh… what beautiful…" he whispered, his voice breaking with awe.
He turned on himself. The horizon was infinite, a perfect mirror: water below, stars above, as if he were suspended between two skies.
Then he remembered a familiar voice, warm, not from that place but from further back, from before.< Don't get distracted by what doesn't matter. You're going to see things you won't understand at first. Some you'll never understand. Don't try to give them shape. Just keep moving forward. And if something happens… keep a cool head. That's the only thing you'll have out there. >
The young man snorted, smiling like someone given a push in the middle of fear."Thanks, dad…" He placed a hand on his waist, breathing deep, and raised his eyes to the sky. "Your words really help."
His hands were trembling. He stared at them, comparing them, as if they were two strange pieces that no longer belonged to him."Dad… I'm shaking. And I haven't even gotten where I'm supposed to go yet…"
He shoved his hands into his pockets, lowered his head, and whispered so softly it was almost inaudible:"Now I'm alone…"
«I was.»
The young man flinched, spinning so fast he nearly lost his balance. He steadied himself on one foot, heart pounding, and looked toward the direction of the sound.
He froze. Far away, much farther than his eyes could truly gauge, stood someone. A silhouette. Just a dark stroke outlined against the starry horizon.
He squinted, forcing his eyes until they hurt. Nothing. The distance was impossible. The blue glow of the sky didn't help: the stars' brightness was a veil, a beautiful but unbearable light that blinded more than it illuminated.
"Who…?" he whispered, but his voice was swallowed by nothingness.
And then he saw it.
Not the figure. The water. Something was moving below, a line rising like a pulse. A wave. The surface began to swell right under that distant figure. It was climbing… no, growing.
The young man took a step back, his breath cut short by the realization: the entire ground was water. No land, no edges, nothing firm. Endless water. Kilometers and kilometers.
That meant what was rising wasn't just a swell. It was a wave. A colossal wave.
He opened his mouth, eyes locked on that wall slowly rising. His heart hammered in his chest like it wanted to escape before he did.
And he ran.
His first impulse was to flee backward, to get away. His feet splashed violently against the liquid surface, raising droplets that seemed to hit an invisible glass. The air shredded his throat with every breath.
Suddenly, he veered right, desperate, a change of direction that threw him off-balance. His foot slipped, nearly sending him sprawling sideways. He wavered on the edge, staggered two clumsy steps as if the ground itself bent beneath him. A third step caught him, and he hurled himself forward again.
The wave kept climbing. Higher by the meter, broader, more impossible.The young man lifted his head, trying to measure it. His neck strained, muscles burned. His mouth opened on its own until he couldn't anymore. He dropped his gaze to the ground, panting, running blind, measuring only by the shadow that engulfed him.
And then the shadow covered him whole. The sky disappeared.
A cold tremor shot down his spine."No… no…" he swallowed hard. "If it grows more, I won't escape… if it grows more, it's the end!"
A nervous laugh burst in his throat, broken, uncontrollable."Will I survive? Sure… of course… right?"
The roar of the water was the only answer.
His throat dried with every swallow. He didn't know if it was from running or from fear. The wave's shadow wrapped him completely, his terrified face tightening more and more until his muscles felt about to tear.
The laugh slipped out on its own. A clumsy, cracked sound that scraped his lips like a spark of madness."Ha…ha… will I survive?… of course… sure… right?" he murmured, almost as if trying to convince someone who didn't exist.
But the response was another roar, a liquid crash that made the air vibrate.
The young man clenched his teeth, shut them so hard his jaw ached. His whole body tensed, muscles in alert. His chest burned, and his breathing was pure ragged gasps.
A primal cry tore out from deep inside. A desperate roar, a useless challenge against immensity.
Without stopping his cry, he lowered his head, stretched his arms forward, and pressed his hands into a point. His whole body became a human arrow. Time turned viscous. Every second stretched as he leaned forward, diving headfirst into the wall of water.
Vertigo wrapped him. His vision narrowed to a tunnel where only the liquid surface existed.
And then, the impact.
It wasn't the brutal blow he expected. No pain, no violence. The wave received him with a soft murmur, as if he had pierced an invisible veil.A muffled pof, unreal, and everything turned calm.
The first thing he noticed was the calm. An absurd calm.No waves, no current, no pressure pushing him. The water surrounded him like an unmoving embrace. Neither cold nor hot, just a faint, neutral warmth, as if it didn't exist.
He moved his arms slowly, parting through a liquid too docile, too easy to cross. He looked at his hands before his face: no wounds, no cuts, no pain. Intact.
A brief relief coursed through him. But at the same time, something didn't fit. His heart still pounded, and confusion tore him apart inside. Had he really survived? Or was it all another illusion?
He turned on himself in a clumsy attempt to find the figure he'd seen before. Nothing. No silhouette, no shadows, no trace of the wave. Only endless water."Was the wave their doing?… or…?" he whispered inside his head.
And then instinct jolted him awake: his throat burned. He grabbed at his neck with one hand and clamped his mouth with the other. The truth hit like a hammer: he couldn't breathe.
"The water… is it real water?" he thought in panic, choking on his own saliva that burned his windpipe.
He sealed his lips as tight as he could, pinching his nose too, holding the air as if it were all he had left. His arms thrashed desperately, swimming upward toward what he thought was the surface.
But each movement was weaker than the last. The lack of oxygen drained his strength. His chest exploded, lungs screaming for air.
His eyes opened and closed again and again, fighting the unconsciousness that pressed down like a weight. His legs gave way first. His arms followed.
His body surrendered. And in that instant, the water's abyss was swallowing him whole.
A lash tore through him.Pain burst in his stomach as if someone had driven a spear from within. His eyes flew open, and his hands darted to clutch his belly.
The burning from suffocation was already unbearable, but now it mixed with that brutal stab that drew tears. His throat trembled, and he forced one last effort: he held the scraps of air left in his lungs.
He couldn't.
The pain and lack of oxygen broke him at once. He opened his mouth and let out a guttural scream. A roar of despair, rage, pure instinct.But the water swallowed the sound. Not a bubble escaped. The scream stayed trapped in his chest, mute, as if reality itself refused to hear it.
And then… darkness.
The next instant was a brutal leap.
The young man's eyes flew open, and he shot upright on a bed. Air crashed in violent bursts, mixing inhales and exhales without order. He coughed, gasped, each gulp scraping his throat and setting his lungs on fire.
The pain in his stomach was still there, sharp, real. Cold wrapped him completely, as if he'd been dragged drenched from a frozen river.
His gaze blurred first on the ceiling: wooden beams crisscrossed, with metal plates wedged between the gaps. The wood seemed damp, and the sound of wind seeping through completed the feeling that he was still trapped in some strange dream.
But it wasn't a dream. He was awake. Alive.
Still short of breath, he turned his head to the left. And froze.
There, in the middle of the room, stood an impossible object: a spear. Not of iron or wood, but of something that looked like coral torn from the seafloor, twisted, with edges gleaming wet beneath the faint light. It was embedded diagonally in the floor, aimed straight at the bed, as if someone had hurled it with deadly force and it had stopped just short of impaling him.
The young man tried to rise, elbows trembling on the mattress. As soon as he lifted his torso, a freezing wind struck his nape and forced him to turn.
The room's only circular window was shattered. The wooden and metal frame splintered inward, as if something had burst through on entry. Night air rushed in gusts, carrying with it salty droplets that stung his skin and lips.
He turned fully, lowered his legs, and set his feet on the floor. The wood was cold, damp. He sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the window opening into the void, listening to the whistling wind and the irregular dripping falling from the splintered edges.
He swallowed hard. His stomach hurt with every breath. Instinctively, he pressed his left hand against his belly, bracing against the pain, while his eyes kept flicking back to the spear stuck a few meters away.
"Could it be that thing… broke through the window… and hit me in the fall…" he said softly, but the words broke on their own. "Impossible, right?"
The silence of the room gave no answer. Only the wind, whistling through the broken window, mocked him.